The Unforgiven movie can be termed to be a final page in the book that entails westerns, probably reflecting on the career of Clint Eastwood at the same time providing a gritty, realistic west. This is very evident at the start of the film. A whore tries to escape after a man unclothes and he cuts her, mutilates her. As a result, this act forms the basis for a revengeful call for gunfighters to punish the two culprits. The conflicts reflected the film’s realistic themes as it contrasts aspects of spaghetti westerns against real moral perception.
Unforgiven uses the commonly known touchstones of the Western genre in subversive and an unfamiliar way. After examining the movie carefully, one can simply figure out that in as much as the film retains the complexity, it is still noted to have critiquing traditional understandings of the western manhood (Buscombe, 2004). This is evident when Eastwood is represented as the aging killer who transformed into an unimpressive pig farmer. The story of the movie seems to subvert our understanding of Western determination during the dramatic ending. The viewers are shown that in situations where the manhood is faced with difficulties, it is the exact hardship that allows him to emerge victoriously.
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At the end of the film Unforgiven, there are some shocking moments for the audience when Eastwood, a bounty cowboy hunter Will Munny shoots Gene Hackman with his long gun. After blowing away Gene Hackman, he walks around the town riding on a horse. This indicates the relief of the fight between good and evil is diminished by violent action (Ingrassia, 1998). Despite the fact that Eastwood is with a vengeance, his brutal killing scene is ruthless and cold. The view undermines the cardinal rule of all westerns.
The reason why Unforgiven is consistently perceived to be subversive to traditional methods of westerns is widely attributed by the representation of the fairly mundane image of the typically mythologized West (Buscombe, 2004). There are cases when the reviewers perceive the film to be portraying a “realistic” approach to its quotidian qualities. Realism is widely used in the western movies where the world resembles the viewer’s perceptions. Consequently, fantasy is mostly applied in instances of technological advancements. It is very evident that the mode of the western film of screen reality is based on the realism as opposed to fantasy.
It should be noted that Unforgiven can be termed to have some elements of “realistic” due to its unglamorous understanding of the Western life when compared to various movies of this genre. For instance, the one harsh gunfighters, Will Munny and Ned Logan have settled and changes to be farmers (Buscombe, 2004). The usual frontline town, to be specific Big Whisky, Wyoming does not give room to guns anymore. Therefore the scarce remaining gunfighters like English Bob to the extent of hacking writers who spy on them to falsify the mundane facts of their lives into mythic consumption for an Eastern reading viewer.
Almost everything concerning unforgiven s tory and more so about its application mirrors a contrary picture of traditional Western tropes. The heroes fight for the respect of prostitutes instead of God-fearing guiltless. Rough gunfighters are known to be scaredy-cats, liars, and weaklings while others discovers they have surpassed the desire to take another person’s life. The law is enacted by the pitiless ex- gunslinger whose understanding of order is horrible. Consequently, our self-respecting main character abandons his once brutal ways only to be transformed into a fearless killer again, claiming that a western hero does not always have to be the genre of the West guy. Instead, it should be the one who survived.
Therefore, it’s only right to say that Unforgiven represents the western genre in general. It was the first American Western movie that performed African- American man developing an interracial relationship. Morgan Freeman’s Ned tied the knot to a Native American female. Additionally, the woman Raquel Welch gets murdered before even the film could come to an end. On the other hand, Munny is able to determine that there is something more to the theme of revenge than what was witnessed in the old westerns that were believed to be personal (Ingrassia, 1998). As seen in the movie the writer is drawn to the sheriff to earn money through composing romantic stories to satisfy the needs of the marketplace. The market place is used as the symbol for the Americans, and its promotion for people like Munny to heroic titles like those watched in spaghetti westerns is termed to be a fantasy, although in real life they are real men.
In summary , Unforgiven can be labeled as a more reflective western made in a classical approach. It has brought changes in manners through which the producers, audience, and reviewers view the western genre. The changes are brought by challenging the usual stereotypes by bringing in new, darker aspects which enhanced its popularization. Evidently, Eastwood is known for a grip-it-and-rip-it shooting technique that seems to be adverse to hundred-take types such as Stanley Kubrick. Additionally, Jack Green’s photography is astonishingly composed making the movie to be a classic and unfussy craft.
References
Buscombe, E., & British Film Institute. (2004). Unforgiven . London: BFI.
Ingrassia, C. (1998). Writing the West: Iconic and Literal Truth in "Unforgiven.". Literature Film Quarterly , 26 (1), 53
